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Homeownership Hits 48-Year Low: Renting (rather than buying) single-family homes has become popular for many reasons

by Danner Hickman

Back in 1967, Lyndon Johnson was our President, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band topped the Billboard charts, a gallon of gas only cost 33 cents, and the homeownership rate was 63.3 percent.

In the second quarter of 2015, Barack Obama was our President, See You Again topped the Billboard charts, a gallon of gas cost $2.80 and was considered cheap, and the U.S. homeownership rate fell below 63.5 percent for the first time in 48 years!

Of course, a lot of things have changed since 1967, so let’s think about these trends in a more recent time frame. In the last year, there has been an increase of 1.6 million households due to immigration, millennials moving out of their parents’ homes, and people deciding that they want to live alone instead of with roommates. Of those 1.6 million new households, 2.0 million of them are new “renter households.” That means that there are 400,000 fewer owner-
occupied households than there wer